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When Privatization Trumps Productivity

How to increase national productivity must be the topic of conversation.

Managing the finances of the BU household requires adherence to a simple rule which cannot be broken. Do not spend more that is earned! It is the only way individuals can create a financial security blanket (creating wealth) for the family before retirement. We live in a world which has become addicted to consumption. It has become a place where the value system is securely anchored in love for things at the expense of people or what is commonsense.

The Barbados Labour Party (BLP) next talkback forum has as its topic ‘Putting Money Back in your Pocket”. The topic should provoke all Barbadians to think about what kind of country we want. We understand that political parties are in the business of winning elections, and the opportunity to promise what is often impossible or illogical is par for course at this time. It explains why the period leading into a general election is labelled ‘the silly season’. However Barbadians must be able to rationalize and force the best decision based on what is before us.

Barbados is an economy where we import most of what we consume, we produce little. If we do nothing or follow the trend of expanding our consumption, it means we have to improve the inflow of foreign exchange. It is a simple equation to balance which has implications for being able to defend the parity of the Barbados Dollar and avoid the clutches of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). BU’s simple analysis is that Barbados can continue to live above its means; we have been doing so for the last 20 years, and suffer the fate of many countries across the Caribbean and the world – OR – we can make structural changes to our social and economic model to be able to sustain a wholesome and practical lifestyle for Barbadians in the present and generations to follow, while at the same time build out mitigating options to buffer the exogenous shocks which will affect us from time to time.

We have a Democratic Labour Party (DLP) which has realized four years into its term that it has the reins of government. A scan of the Barbados Parliament website (BU assumes that it has been updated)reveals that several matters are before the House to be debated and even with an improved work rate by members of government, it is inconceivable that the Prevention of Corruption Bill, 2010, Holidays with Pay Bill, 2012 as well as many Resolutions will be completed. Note that the Cultural Industries Bill and the Freedom of Information Bill have not made it to the short list. BU is mindful that at a time when businesses are being asked to keep the belt tight and maintain employee numbers, the country is being presided over by the largest Cabinet in our post-Independence period. Perhaps if it had shown the same energy for the duration of its term….

In Opposition we have the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) promising to stop the economic haemorrhaging by privatizing key state assets and delivering tax cuts to the middleclass supported by a rollback of VAT to 15% 2016. In Opposition without sight of the big picture a little salt in close proximity is recommended. When the parties make their Manifestos public literally days before the election, Barbadians will get a better grasp of how they propose to guide Barbados in economic conditions which are expected to persist for several more years.

Billions of dollars later pumped into educating Barbadians if BU had to guess what would be the topic consuming national debate leading into a general election – PRIVATIZATION or PRODUCTIVITY – we would be dumbstruck that privatization has trumped productivity. Instead of building on the foundation which the Adames and Barrow have left us, we are about to take the easy route by dumping key state agencies (GAIA and The Port Authority and others) for cash because of our inability to build out a system of meritocracy.

If there was a time when Barbadians should demonstrate that we are an educated people, that time is now. Country first must be the cry. Instead at a time of unprecedented crisis we have a country divided on the issues and unwilling to build consensus on the issues. The BLP has not help the cause by showing political naiveté by committing the biggest political blunder for the season. Time will tell if it proves to be fatal.

It is unfortunate the national discussion is not focussed on the systemic issues affecting the country. This week we learned that the Eurozone slipped into double-dip recession, there is the volatility of the Middle East. Is it too much for Barbadians to be shocked into the reality about what is important? The decision whether to vote BLP or DLP, Arthur or Stuart is becoming less appealing by the day for a growing segment of the electorate but vote we must.

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onions and miller could talk shoite until the cows go home Bajans are unanimous in the rejection of privatisation. The money tycoons, the usual suspects, who prodding Arthur to push it are a very tiny minority.

Mascoll could raise his sqeaky voice to the skies the end reults of his policies is chaos. Heard Mascoll today not one word on how to expand foreign exchange or save it. Phd my ass if tax breaks and a rush of money is let loose people will splurge on imports which will catspraddle the foreign exchange reserves. You dont need a Phd to work out that. We know the IMF lurking for that eventuality.

The shoite Malik wid Teet keeps repeating that Barbados economy is based on domestic money not foreign exchange is unbelievable bull shit. Foreign exchange is key. If domestic money was the key Zimbabwe would be world’s richest and Mugabe a Nobel Peace Prize winner in economics. Guyana would have full employment and the highest per capita GDP in the Americas.

The BLP are out of ideas they dont have any answers. They are clueless on how to take Barbados forward. I’m feeling more optimistic with each passing day in the hands of the DLP. We staying with Fruendel and the Dems. Jobs gone with Owen!

where is the plan from Fruendel and the Dems? or would i be asking for to much? Jobs gone with Owen is right. from the time he left govt the jobs started going, i think we should bring him back and see the jobs come back. what a dumbass line. Jobs gone with Owen, only Freundel and the gang of jokers would and could come up with something like that….

We have heard it straight from the DLP horse’s mouth.
The bright eye and bushy tail giant has made it clear that under no circumstances will CBC or the Transport Board (TB) will be privatized. Can we conclude that they also will not be divested or closed down but will always remain under the control and financial support of the State under a DLP government?

We have also noticed he has not mentioned the fate of the other statutory bodies like GAIA, and Port Inc. What about the State enterprises of a commercial nature like BADMC, BSIL, BNOC and NHC?

Mr. Molasses of Integrity Hill you thrown down the gauntlet and have cast the die.
We trust you have the support of your current Minister of Finance who most likely will not be in that position if your party is returned to office and you are reselected as leader. Minister Estwick seems to be singing from the same hymn sheet as you and he is the man to stand steadfastly behind this iron tight unbreakable commitment to the people of Barbados.

We shall see how strong and indomitable a leader you are when you are forced to make a volte-face by an exogenous power.
We will not accept any feigned excuses when this point of decision is reached. No crocodile tears must be shed and asking the people to understand the nature of politics or the sudden fiscal cannon ball confronting us because our banking an outstanding winter season never came to fruition.

We will expect you to stand by your word the same way you intend to honour your pledges and commitment to the CLICO policyholders and to Al Barrack.

If your party were to win the upcoming elections and you are returned as the head of government you cannot recant on your ‘non divestment’ commitments unless you immediately resign and call for new elections and a new mandate to go back on your commitment. We would wish you to put this non-divestment commitment in your party’s manifesto clearly spelt out and underwritten by all your candidates. We all know from your administration’s actions that a manifesto is not a contract and can be easily dismissed as it suits. But let us see how much integrity you have by making a bold promise to the people to the following:

The DLP will never under any circumstances privatize or sell or close down the CBC and the TB and if we the DLP is forced to do such we will immediately seek the people’s approval by way of a new mandate.
We await your pronouncements of the other statutory fiscal bloodsucking entities.
Where is the Fourth Estate in all of this?

It is the BLP who has proposed PRIVATISATION as part of its recovery plan for Barbados. Why don’t you ask OSA to confirm which national assets Sir Allan Fields (agent for Neal & Massy) has indicated will be bought by N&M when the BLP is returned to office and with the resumption of private meetings/deals on the patio of Mr. Hallem Nicholls over a game of Hearts or Black Jack?
Who is going to get Barbados Water Authority, will it be Neal & Massy, will be Bjerkham Group or will The Williams clean-up when their boy Owen is back at the helm?

Any truth to the following:
a) Goddards have confirmed they will take GAIA.
b) Neal & Massy have confirmed they will take the Barbados Port Inc.
c) Bjerkham and Williams both have indicated a willingness to take the BWA but without any debt whatsoever, only the assets and the revenue stream they want.
d) Republic Bank want the NIS.

Are you confirming that jada has jumped the ship that Captain Stuart is steering right to rocks of economic disaster?
Just only goes to show you must never depend on these businessmen for long-term loyalty. Lashes will just have to cough up some of that $17 million from jada since there will not be much coming from the builder the same way Mascoll got very little from CLICO in 2003.
The only difference between the BLP allocation and the DLP is that under the DLP the IMF will be the one determining the terms of sale.

The BCCI has requested a moderate stimulus. The question must be asked in light of the protracted global economic slowdown – suppose it goes on for another 6 years which has been suggested by IMF et al?

you know jada will play with whomsoever get elected. that nothwithstanding doh, why you don’t address the telephone conversation recording between osa and allan fields regarding carving up the gob assets?

Why would a ransom be part of the contract with the people?
Can’t we rely on the word of Mr. Integrity as his bond? Or are you judging him by your own lying deceitful double-talk hypocritical standards?

The DLP is disingenuously exploiting the fears of the Bajan masses born out an ingrained opposition to private enterprise. This ingrained fear was born and conditioned in the historical crucible of the plantation system deemed to be the cause or design of our cultural DNA.

That system of socio-economic depression and exploitation made black Bajans so dependent on the plantation for economic survival and social and cultural direction.
This former umbilical relationship between blacks and the mainly white foreign-owned but locally managed plantations and trading arrangements continues even today and made more engrained and psychologically acceptable by the political parties and their leaders who made the people more dependent on the ‘substitute’ plantation in the form of the State now managed not by white men in cork hats and whips but by black political parties promising answers to their social problems and pathways to economic heaven.

The State therefore has now become the dispenser of largesse, freeness and wet nurse behaviour for these blacks who were deprived of the spirit of the West African enterprise and forced to submit to the system of socio-economic enslavement and dependence.

Why are black people in Barbados so fearful of taking control and management of the local economy into their individual or collective hands in the form of black business enterprise? Why look to a government managed by a cadre of manipulative ad abusive chiefs called politicians for economic independence and survival?

Why can’t the blacks in Bim dispel the notion that local blacks can’t run or manage businesses?
Why can’t we show the residual but fast disappearing whites and expanding Indians that we are not only hewers of wood and drawers of water as employee sin their businesses or ambitiously aiming to be even sophisticated servants working like parasites in offices in State sector?

Why can’t the physically liberated pond grass third gang see privatization as an opportunity to enfranchise themselves instead of the current total dependence on the exploiting of their own brothers and sisters behind a façade of professional fakery like lawyers and doctors?
What’s wrong with Bajan black people? Why continue to cuss Trinidadians for snapping up previously white owned businesses for a song and penny? Why do you blacks continue to work for these same so-called ‘Trickidadians’? Are you going to cuss Freundel Stuart for selling the assets to foreigners like the Warrens office building to pay Al Barrack?

Why not take ownership and control of the remaining entities or assets instead of having $8 billion sitting on bank accounts to be used by the same people you now cuss and vilify everyday? Get off you black lazy backsides and take matters in you own black hands and stop being the white man and soon Indian and Chinese burden.

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, black Bajans. Here is an opportunity to not only liberate your social psyche but become economically enfranchised. The ball is now in the black Bajan court. Play it or forever hold your plantation mentality peace.

I am not interested in your false allegations about OSA. If you know these things how come the politicians that are using and abusing you, Fan Belt, can’t bring charges against him? You are just another fool to be played with like a political fiddle.

What I want you to do, Fan Belt, before you are overworked ad in need of replacement is to deal with what the miller wrote above about you anti-privatization blacks supporting and being fooled by the DLP.

David, the joker
Mascoll took us to the limit in last evenings VOB newscast in the evening it is my belief that VOB has now decided to show the nonsense that the other people have been playing with is utter nonsense, it couldn’t have been done any better by anyone to show up Mascoll for the crook and idiot that he so clearly is.

His news report has him proffering what was supposed to be his professional view point ( now I would say taxpayers wasted their money on putting this idiot thru UWI ) in the news he states to give back Bajans their VATICAN money and it will have NO effect on the Foreign Currency Reserves of the island and in freeing this VAT money Bajans will now have money to spend at home and buy a Haircut.

Now you tell me this is someone that was sold to Bajans last election as Arthur’s CO LEADER, I am ashamed to think that Arthur and the BLP thinking so lowly of Bajans to try to foist this fraudster and idiot onto sensible level headed and thinking Barbadians!

Shame on Arthur and Shame on the BLP for selling Barbadians as idiots in the same league of ignorance as Mascoll.

The PM seems to be suffering from a serious hangover since he awoke from a seemingly 2 year drunken stupor.
He is adamant he will not be selling out Barbados to foreigners especially the West Coast and the South Coast.
Reality check: Hello Mr. PM, does the government own any properties on the West and South Coasts that could be up for sale and requiring your ultimate approval? It’s no use shutting the foreign sales property stable door, the local horse has already bolted.

Are you referring Mr. PM to the many hotel and restaurant properties that have closed their doors over the last 2 years?
Man, if you had said the East Coast we would listen to you but the West and South coasts are up for ‘re-sale’ for sure. Just take a drive and see the number of “For Sale” signs decorating the numerous properties on the once gold and silver coasts.

Your scaremongering tactics will not work with those in the know of the reality on the ground.

The next 4 months will decide. We shall see. The DLP will not be the winner but the people of Barbados who have no way to run will be the biggest losers when the country is forced to surrender its total economic sovereignty to foreigners with a devaluation kick up the rear end.
Why do you think the Governor of the central bank has gone all silent and looking so gaunt? He knows that the country is in the road of an oncoming devaluation train that not even a Cinderella winter season can save from imminent impact. Did you hear any upbeat prognosis in his voice? He has passed the ball back into the politicians court. Don’t be surprised if he submits his resignation quoting the personal matters and his reaching the age of retirement as his excuse to run away from the spreading fire.

Your statement along with the PM’s will be recorded for posterity and if I am around will be used against you, verbatim. No denials (as is your MO) of such antagonism towards privatization will suffice when the time comes, capiche?

If a devaluation of the Barbados dollars is on the cards (as you claim) then why is Owen Seymore Arthur, a previously fired Prime Minister, calling the foreign exchange surplus ($300M) to be used as a local economy stimulus??

You are a blasted retard. What happen to the PAC that Owen was rushing to arrange regarding the Pierhead Marina????????

What happens when you are not earning income at the rate required to maintain your opulent lifestyle and you have to eat into your little 16 week savings?
The official 16 weeks of import cover at the end of September is steadily being eroded and is most likely just 12 by now.

Can you imagine what it will be by the end of January 2013 when the Prison BOLT payment has to be made?
Do you really feel that the ‘lickle” (picked up in Jca) forex in the kitty is enough to tide us over this sustained period of underemployment when there will not only be demands to meet regular imports of food, oil and supplies but also remittances of profits, management fees, overseas studies and financing the operations of the foreign affairs like embassies and overseas travel plus the most compulsorily, the servicing of our overseas debt.
What about the $40 million for the Pierhead redesign computer airbrush job. Has that been remitted to the St Lucian IBC yet by Darcy Boyce? OSA needs to hang his head in shame!

If a devaluation of the Barbados dollars is on the cards (as you claim) then why is Owen Seymore Arthur, a previously fired Prime Minister, calling for the foreign exchange surplus ($300M) to be used as a local economy stimulus??

Why, why, why? The $30 M BOLT payment, due each and every January for 25 years is a creature of OSA. He was there in the room when the creature was conceived, he helped deliver it (along with Darcy who was on the Evaluation Committee) and then he (OSA) made sure it was fed (his signature in on the Letter of Comfort) and now that the creature has become a political monster, he wants to put the blame of Mia Amor Mottley.

miller i see you bring up the privatization topic using communist Cuba as an example . man you really drowning in your own sh..t now, please explain to me how a people that is the cuban people who barely makes a penny a day and depends on the govt leftovers to feed them gonna have money to lease the olds dilapidated buildings the govt have no further use for and now have come up with the grandiose plan to unload them on the people under the so called privatisation leasing plan . sometime similar to what you and OSA have in mind for bajans,

Because OSA learned from David Thompson. Barbados under OSA was the worst economy in the world according to the DLP under David Thompson so he promised to save us from economic destruction and hell fire. Can’t OSA play the same tune?
Instead of Jobs no 1, 2 and 3 being Cost of living OSA can sing jobs no 1, 2, 3,and 4 will be getting people back to work and money in people’s pocket.
What’s new about the Punch and Judy show? A flying white horse eating and snorting good old Blue Mountain pride, Pegasus?

With respect to Darcy and the prison contract award don’t you think he was the quisling in the room?
Such disloyal men who betray their leaders ought to be punished not with laughter but with a firing from the Cabinet squad. Whom do you think is leaking all the Cabinet’s secrets? Jepter Ince or David Estwick or even Chris?

Get men around Freundel who are handsome such ugly men with the disloyal untrustworthy gene like Darcy Boyce must be avoided at all cost.

I do not think that Donville should continue to accuse me beating my wife. I have not beat her since 2009. I don’t stand for disobedience with women, when them head down the road I does remind them who is boss even if I gotta give them too good slaps, a big chuck and ring my foot in them.

Politiicans need to stop playing games and man-up to the inevitable and that is that privatization is inevitable.

The Barbados Economy cannot continue to prop up CBC and the Transport Board and other blood sucking entities.

Transport can be privatized–More people will benefit because a big non-profit entity like the Transport Board can split into many fragments. ditto for other big wasteful entities.

Here is how Transport can work privatized.

You have mini-buses, ZRs and Taxis that will increase in number and be owned by individuals. You have many private cars in Barbados. Give people permission to make money using their cars by transporting other people. I can therefore pull up my car by a workplace put in 5 or 6 people and charge them a fare and quick so get them to their destination.

Look how people going to now start making money

So more cars instead of being parked at home will be out making money. Cost of wear and tear and maintenance will be at the owner, not government.

Free up the law that will allow people to bring in cars cheaper off of the net. There are some vehicles in good condition which are older that the stipulated four years . People can buy these to transport other people and make money. It could be a community thing . All the cars in Bush Hall can transport Bush Hall people . All the Cars in Wotton can transport the people in Wotton and so on.
This is a change from what we are accustomed to with the Transport Board Buses
There is absolutely no danger in transportation being privatised–None whatsover
Transportation can be privatized

Let us get this straight, the politicians issue, sell, make deals with PSV permits. They allocate, approve, sell lucrative routes to friends and others with deep pockets. Successive ministers award insurance, repair contracts to friends and special others. Now that the inefficiency has been exposed in times of plenty NOT, what do we do? PRIVATIZE.

The BLP forgot to mention to their supporters that their so called “privatisation” would lead to thousands losing their jobs, paying $5 bus fares including for sending their children school,significantly reduced service to rural parishes.
They are promising everything to everyone but not one specific word about where the money will come from.
So after all the long talk from Arthur trying to give the impression that they were these easy solutions out there- do we get a credible plan from the BLP – NO.
We get “a poorly thought out “privatisation Gimmick and Cartoons” –
this is what the BLP presents after 4 1/2 years of criticising everything – “Gimmicks and Cartoons”.
It seems that the BLP is out of fresh ideas.

@ BLP NWS…..
“They are promising everything to everyone but not one specific word about where the money will come from.”

I don’t recall hearing where the money for the duty free cars, interest free loans etc would have come from.
You need to stop trying to scare people talking foolishness about $5 bus fares and fees for school children. Government could sell TB and still subsidise pensioners’ and school children’ bus fares and low volume routes at a cost below what it is currently spending. The more you and your cohorts talk, the more it becomes clearer that you are the ones without ideas.

We get “a poorly thought out “privatisation Gimmick and Cartoons” –
this is what the BLP presents after 4 1/2 years of criticising everything – “Gimmicks and Cartoons”.
It seems that the BLP is out of fresh ideas.
——————————–>>>>>>>>
This comment above by whoever is such trite it is a shame. Just because you are limited in your creative ideas, you ascribe the same limitations to others. You cannot think it, you cannot see it so you assume that others cant think , others cant see. –Joke !

You do not know so listen and learn
and if you have ears to hear , you will hear

Definition of a gimmick – noun
a trick or device intended to attract attention, publicity, or trade: it is not so much a programme to improve services as a gimmick to gain votes

During 14 years as Prime Minister, Owen Arthur swells the ranks of the public service, refuses to make much needed reforms to the Barbados Drug Service and then criticises those who do, over the last 4 years he says that spending needs to be cut but offer no specific solutions, he nearly bankrupted the BNOC and now talks about making the entity attractive for sale while criticising efforts that saved the entity-
After Arthur spends the last 4 years criticising the fiscal deficit he then starts promising things that everyone knows will create a financial mess without specifying where the money will come from, Mr. Arthur is obviously about “gimmicks ” and is offering no workable solutions.

@ Yagga Rowe. You have many private cars in Barbados. Give people permission to make money using their cars by transporting other people. I can therefore pull up my car by a workplace put in 5 or 6 people and charge them a fare and quick so get them to their destination.
…………………………………………………………………………………..
Not a bad idea, but the money that these private car owners will make transporting people,would not be sufficient to pay for their soon to be modified insurance coverage. Third Party only for an old Suzuki Van will not cut it.
Perhaps the Government can get into this act, with the amount of Government owned MP and ML cars we see swanning around with just one occupant , it would be more economical and efficient to use these cars to transport people ,along the route of their travels, more so, than the big 60/70 seater Buscars with a few passengers , most of the times.

Definition of Gimmickry- a BLP attempt to lay off thousands of public sector workers through “privatisation” while trying to sell it as “enfranchisement” .
Bajans will not be fooled by Arthur, come again.

Randy Batson’s letter in The Barbados Advocate (11/23, ‘Our Society Needs to Find a New Way Forward’) provides a cautionary tale for why comparisons of the US economic system to that of Barbados is dangerous, and why viewing FOX news and especially Bill O’Reilly needs to come with a warning label at the bottom of the screen!

Let’s first get straight some marked differences that are elicited by Mr. Batson’s missive:

1) Bill O’Reilly is regarded by a clown supreme by most of the intelligent, educated and informed electorate of the US. This was even before he made his lame “wanted stuff” remark.

2) The term “entitlements” as used by O’Reilly and others of the careless pundit class is a misnomer because they are not free! American workers have paid into them with significant taxes their whole lives (somewhat like Barbados’ National Insurance scheme).

3) There is no “universal health care” in the United States! Medicare covers a limited range of the elder populace (those over 65 years old who’ve worked at least 40 quarters) while Medicaid covers the poorest indigent – usually working populace – not paid a living wage by which they could buy health coverage on their own. The “Obamacare” system the US Right (like O’Reilly) made such a fuss over is not free, rather people must sign up to a private insurer and pay their rates, else be fined by the government.

4) College tuition-grants were never part of the “stuff” to which O’Reilly and earlier Romney referred, but rather Obama enabling a different federal loan scheme by which part or all of the loan balance could be forgiven after 10 years if conditions were met (especially if the students were never able to get out of low wage, i.e. Walmart pay scale) jobs.

5) The contraceptives for young women, and also older, were not “free stuff” as described by Romney and Bill O’Reilly, but always part of the Obama Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act because it was known that otherwise – impecunious, struggling women and their families would have to shell out over $99 000 in order to prevent having more kids – meaning they’d also likely have to turn to abortions.

The people that have consistently invoked O’Reilly and his “free stuff” comment (as a positive take) simply don’t get it. They don’t understand the working dynamic in the US nor ask why it was that Mitt Romney actually promised a scale of true “free stuff” (to his benefactors) that made Obama’s provisions look like chump change.
Hence, had Romney won, the millionaires and billionaires would have reaped not only $5 trillion in tax cuts, but an end to regulations protecting our food, water, medical prescriptions even air standards. All of this so the top 1 per cent of American society could become even wealthier at the expense of the rest of us.

My point here is that Barbados, under NO circumstances, should consider any solution (including indiscriminate “privatisation”) that destroys or eliminates the essential support of positive government – as similarly advocated by the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Mitt Romney here in the US.

That is a prescription to increase economic inequality and that is one thing we don’t need anywhere, whether in Barbados or here in the US.